


Jump

by sofia_gigante



Series: Blade Runner and Point Man [4]
Category: Blade Runner (1982), Blade Runner (Movies), Inception (2010)
Genre: AU, Angst, BAMF Arthur, Blade Runner AU, Blade Runner! Eames, Canon-Typical Violence, Community: inceptiversary, Inception Bingo, M/M, can't catch a break, erotic dream
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-23
Updated: 2016-08-23
Packaged: 2018-08-10 15:36:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7851016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sofia_gigante/pseuds/sofia_gigante
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“If I wanted you dead then I would’ve left you on that ledge.”</i>
</p>
<p>Sometimes your only option is to take a leap of faith. Literally.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Jump

**Author's Note:**

> My fourth entry to Inception Bingo (amnesty period) with the prompt "erotic dreams." Finally, this marks a straight line bingo!
> 
> A huge, huge THANK YOU to Sibilant for her continued support, patience, and awesome beta-ing!
> 
> This is very much dependent on the previous episodes, highly recommended you read from the beginning so you'll understand what's happening in this fic.

Eames didn’t think. Not about Arthur, not about what had happened that day.

He didn’t think for the rest of that night, or the next day when he had little to kill the long stretch of Saturday between waking and bedtime. He tinkered on his Voight-Kampff machine, and was relieved to find that he could make all the necessary repairs himself. Then he moved on to chores. He scrubbed his floors, cleaned every dish in his kitchen, and even attempted to patch the leak in his ceiling himself. When he finished that, he cleared his desk, did his filing, and even dusted off the cracked Tiffany lamp. Then, when there was nothing left to do, he grabbed his coat and headed out the door.

He didn’t think of Arthur as he passed through Chinatown, didn’t jump when he saw an old woman with a yellow tote bag with a garish red panda on it. When he stopped at Wing Sing Dim Sum for dumplings to go, he didn’t look at the corner booth to see if a hooded figure was hiding behind his newspaper.

He especially didn’t think of Arthur when he was back in his tiny apartment, sitting at his dining room table with his dumplings and his beer. He had eaten these same dumplings hundreds of times before. No reason tonight’s meal should feel strange, or that the feeling of warm soy sauce on his lips should make them tingle. To distract himself, he leafed through an old issue of _Dorgon Magazine_ he’d unearthed in his cleaning. He came across a full page article-ad on one of the Martian colonies.

_“Yeah, well, don’t believe everything you read about the colonies.”_

He tossed the magazine aside and cleaned up his half-eaten dinner. Then he simply…stood in his apartment for a long moment. Had it always felt so empty?

_No. When two people lived here, it was downright crowded._

Lived? No, Robert never “lived” here. Stayed here for days at a time, yes. He even kept clothes, books, records, the usual stuff you keep at your significant other’s. But this was never his address. Robert had kept offering to “help” Eames afford rent for a bigger apartment in a more...attractive neighborhood, but Eames had always refused. Said it would make him feel too much like a kept man.

_Yeah, Robert really wanted to keep you, didn’t he?_

Eames killed the rest of the evening by taking a long, hot shower, then finished up _Brave New World_ in bed. As his body relaxed into sleep, he thought of how funny it was to go back and read how people of the past envisioned the future—how nothing ever turned out how anyone planned. Who would’ve imagined World War Terminus, or replicants, or colonies on Mars as reality? It was as strange as fiction, as surreal as a dream...

The landscape before him was red, barren. Stones the color of blood, sky a shifting, sickly ochre. Eames flexed his fingers, feeling the cold, the dryness in the air against his bare skin. He shouldn’t be able to breathe, but he could. Quite easily, in fact, and the air smelled faintly of spices—Cinnamon. Anise. Clove. Chili pepper. Fennel.

“You shouldn’t be here.”

Eames didn’t need to turn to see who was speaking. He knew that voice. Intimately.

“And why is that, Robert?” Eames said, his chest tightening. Just when he’d finally, finally made it to Mars…

“You know why.” Robert’s voice was careful, the tone one took when talking to a sick loved one. It drove Eames mad.

“But it’s not enough to stop you.”

“I have to go. It’s…it’s business. I’m sorry.”

Long arms wrapped around Eames from behind, trying to comfort, to claim. It was how Robert had always tried to diffuse this old argument. Not this time. Eames pulled away, and turned, ready to retort—

It wasn’t Robert behind him. It was Arthur.

Eames’s heart did a flip in his chest, his mouth going dry. Arthur had that same little melancholy smile on his lips as he’d had after he kissed Eames in the restaurant—but they weren’t in the restaurant. They weren’t on Mars anymore, either. They were back in Arthur’s cramped basement office at Cobol, but this time Eames was the one in the interrogation chair and Arthur was the one leaning against his desk. He looked sharp and dangerous in that crisp three-piece suit, his dark hair meticulously slicked back. He held a silver briefcase in one hand, and he placed it on the desk and opened it. Eames saw the canisters and tubes and strange machinery of Arthur’s mystery device. As Arthur pulled out a long coil of clear tubing, his stomach twisted when he saw it was tipped with a silver needle.

“It won’t hurt, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Arthur said.

“No,” Eames whispered. He should be afraid of the needle, of whatever it was inside that case that Arthur was threatening to attach him to. He wasn’t, though. He was curious to the point of desperation, even volunteering his hand to let Arthur slide the needle into the tender skin of his wrist.

Arthur repeated the treatment on himself, and the two of them were now linked to the mystery machine.

“What now?” Eames asked. Why this machine was so valuable that two men had almost killed Arthur for it. Why Arthur had risked exposure to retrieve it.

“Now it brings you back to me.”

“It wha—”

Arthur interrupted Eames’ question with a kiss—hard, sweet, and hungry. Eames grabbed Arthur, desperate to catch him before his disappeared yet again. He pulled him closer, wrapped his arms around Arthur and drew him down onto his lap. The tubing tangled around them as Arthur’s kiss became messy, almost feral, teeth sinking into Eames’ bottom lip hard enough to smart.

Eames tried to reach between them, free his straining cock from the prison of his trousers, but Arthur grabbed his wrist and forced it down against the arm of the chair. He repeated the motion with Eames’ other wrist, and Eames found himself pinned. Arthur was deceptively strong for his slight frame, and Eames felt a flush of delicious helplessness run through him like heat.

Arthur rubbed his ass against Eames’ thighs, grinding down on Eames’ rock-hard erection that was still trapped under too many layers of clothing. Eames could do little but whimper, thrust his hips up to meet Arthur, suck and bite on Arthur’s lips until he was sure he would draw blood—

“I want to come!” Eames gasped, his orgasm hovering just out of reach. “God, I want to come so bad—”

“Then do it,” Arthur said, his lips sliding across Eames’ cheek until he was right at his ear. “Come for me.”

Eames tried. He truly did, but he couldn’t move quite the right way, get the friction he needed. “I…I can’t…can’t come like this.”

“You’re not even trying to come back!” Arthur growled, his voice sounding more like Robert’s than his own. He squeezed Eames’ wrists, his dark gaze boring into Eames. “You’re not even trying to be you!”

Eames pulled back, confused. His brain was so fogged with lust, with Arthur, with filling the void inside of himself—

Arthur picked up Eames’ hand and slammed it down on the circle at the center of the machine. It was a button of some sort, and it gave slightly under Eames’ fingers. Eames watched with a mix of fascination and desperation as clear fluid traveled up the tubes towards him, toward Arthur, slow as syrup. He knew once the fluid reached them, slid into their bloodstream, that Arthur would be lost to him again.

“Please,” Eames begged, pushing up against Arthur’s grasp. It was like fighting against steel.

Arthur rocked harder, rubbing himself against Eames’ trapped cock. Eames’ vision blurred, pleasure spiking through him, close, so close so close—

The high-pitched wail of a siren pierced Eames’ dream, cutting him away from his world of flesh and breath and pleasure. Eames flailed awake, his pulse hammering, his skin clammy. His brain struggled to orient itself back to reality, and his confusion was only compounded when he saw the flash of red and blue lights outside his bedroom window. Then he realized what had happened. Fucking beat cops and their flying cars, why did they always, always hover right outside his building when they were giving someone a ticket? At least they’d turned the siren off after the single warning bleat. It was enough to ruin everything, though. Eames was fully awake now, heart pounding, cock deflating in his thin sweatpants. He couldn’t even catch a break in his dreams.

No use trying to sleep with the police spinner outside his window, so he threw off his covers and padded out into the living room. He didn’t bother to put on a shirt. He figured he would watch some blurry late-night television under a blanket until he calmed down enough to attempt sleep again—

_Rattle. Rattle._

Eames stopped dead in his tracks. His already jangled nerves honed in on the quiet sound, trying to determine if he was hearing a noise from the vents or if that really was…

_Rattle. Rattle._

Yes. That really was someone messing with the lock on his front door.

Eames was moving towards the door before he realized it. He stepped as silently as he could, his gaze locked on the doorknob to see if it ever moved more than a few millimeters at a time. Whoever was on the other side was trying for stealth, the element of surprise. Trying to catch Eames asleep.

_“We’ll find you, blade runner! You can’t hide from us!”_

_Click._

The doorknob turned all the way. Eames lunged for the door, grabbing the knob to keep it from turning fully, and slammed his weight into the wood. A deep voice cursed on the other side of the door, and a second voice growled, “Fuck it.”

A shot rang out just as the wood exploded right by Eames’ face. He dropped to the ground, gasping, his fingers frantically touching his cheek to ensure that yes, his face was still there. Just a few shrapnel cuts. A second shot followed, and Eames scrambled away from the door, not bothering to check just how close that one had come. His instinct for cover drove him behind his heavy wooden desk, and he threw himself behind it with such force that it scraped a few inches across the floor. The movement was the inspiration Eames needed.

As the door began to swing open, he pushed against his desk with all of his might. It rumbled across the floor until it caught on the area rug, and then tipped. Eames shoved it again and watched as it slammed into the door, shutting it and barricading it in one move. The sharp tinkle of broken glass brought his attention to the Tiffany lamp shattered on the floor, but he barely had time to grieve for it. He had to move. Now.

Running in a crouch, he grabbed his jacket off the back of his dining room chair and hastily put it on. It had pretty much everything he needed in his pockets—wallet, Voight-Kampff operation license, smokes, gun. He shoved his feet into his shoes, looking around the apartment for an escape route. His options were extremely limited. He was ten stories up, but there was a fire escape off his bedroom window—

Window. The police car.

His initial moment of relief was tempered by a wave of suspicion. Had the cops not heard the gunshots? Or were they here to make sure that Eames didn’t get away? He’d known plenty of corrupt cops when he’d been on the force—and not all of them were only on the mob’s payroll.

The door shoved open a few inches, scooting the desk further. They’d be here in a matter of moments. Eames could take his chances with the police car, or…

He dove for the living room window. He slammed the glass pane up and kicked out the screen, all the while telling himself that he was being crazy. He scrambled out onto the window ledge, which was only about a foot wide, just enough for him to stand with his back against the wall. He forced himself not to look down, or out into the rainy night, instead focusing only on the few feet of ledge he could see beside him. The only thing to worry about was inching his way two windows down to the abandoned apartment, where he could break the glass to open the latch and slide back into the building behind the thugs. It was a horrible plan.

It became clear just how horrible an idea it was after Eames tried to take his first step. The worn soles of his shoes skidded on the rain-slicked stones, and he had nothing to grab onto for purchase on the building exterior. He forced himself to move slowly, gritting his teeth, but the increasing noise from the front door told him he was running out of time. Once they broke into his apartment, it would be a matter of seconds before they found him out here. They wouldn’t even need a bullet—just a good shove to send him to his death.

The darkness was broken by strobing red and blue as the police spinner drifted slowly around the corner of the building. Eames’ racing pulse went into hyper-drive, his vision blurring with fear. There was no doubt that the vehicle was coming towards him. Eames desperately wanted to dig in his jacket pocket for his gun, but he didn’t dare lessen his feeble grip on the building wall. He tried to take another step towards the next window—neighbors be damned—but his foot slipped so badly he had to throw his weight back to keep from falling.

The blue spinner pulled up right beside him, and the passenger side door pivoted open. Eames could barely see the driver inside—just a dark silhouette against the flashing red and blue lights. He could definitely see the outline of the driver’s gun, though, as the lights bounced off the dark metal.

He was well and truly fucked.

“Eames!” The driver called. “Jump!”

Wait. He knew that voice, that urgent pitch. He’d just been listening to it in his dreams.

“Arthur?”

“Get in the fucking car!” Arthur leaned forward enough so Eames could see his face, creased in concentration as he held the steering wheel in one hand and aimed the gun with the other.

Eames didn’t think. Not about why Arthur was behind the wheel, not about what was happening in his apartment behind him. Certainly not about the ten-story drop beneath him. He just pushed off from the wall as hard as he could, throwing himself gracelessly at the spinner’s open door.

Bullets whizzed past him just as he landed in the cracked vinyl seat, ignoring the jolt of pain that radiated from his shin as he banged it against the side of the car. As he pulled himself the rest of the way in, the _bang_ from Arthur’s gun in the close quarters practically deafened him.

“Give me the gun!” Eames said as he slammed himself down into his seat. To his surprise, Arthur handed over the weapon without hesitation. Eames turned, and trained it on the figures in his apartment window. He squeezed off a series of shots, sending all his fury and frustration with them. He didn’t know if they hit their marks, though, as Arthur gunned the engine and the spinner zipped away from the building. A couple more shots chased them away, but as soon as they rounded a corner, the sounds faded.

Eames had no words. They were all trapped in his throat. He was shaking so badly that he could barely get the safety back on the gun and swing the door shut. He was still dreaming, wasn’t he? This was all part of the same fucked up dream he’d been having before. Any second now he’d wake up in his own bed, alone but safe, with the sound of his pulse drumming louder and louder and louder in his ringing ears—

“Hey. Hey!” Arthur’s voice snapped through the fog threatening envelop Eames’ whole. “Are you all right? Are you shot? Did they hurt you?”

The frantic edge in Arthur’s voice was enough to anchor Eames, and he forced his shaking hands to touch his limbs and torso.

“Your face. You’re bleeding,” Arthur continued.

Eames’ fingers skated over the shrapnel wounds from when they’d first shot through his door. The cuts smarted, and his fingers came away red. He stared at the blood.

“Goddamn it, say something!” Arthur said.

He had to say something, didn’t he? Make some sense out of this mess. Nothing made sense, though, not a whit. It was all too strange, too big...so Eames narrowed his focus to the immediate, and said the next thought that popped into his head.

“Still think my face is pretty?”

Only the sound of Arthur’s raspy breathing filled the tiny space. Then, a chuckle. It quickly grew into a genuine belly laugh. Eames couldn’t help himself. He began to laugh, too, but it was manic, releasing the fear and tension and madness from the last few minutes. Tears streamed down his face, their salt stinging his cuts, but he didn’t care. It felt good, damn good. It meant he was still alive.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were a cop?” Eames asked once they’d finally quieted.

“I’m not,” Arthur said. His fingers danced over the spinner’s controls as he killed the police lights and took them higher into the sky.

“For not being a cop, you sure know your way around a spinner.” Eames began fishing in his sodden jacket for his cigarettes, praying silently that they’d survived the ordeal.

“These are standard in the Corps. Best way to get around alien terrains,” Arthur said. His tone was deceptively casual, as if he wasn’t just disclosing the first piece of real information about himself—that he had served in the off-world military.

“And you told me you hadn’t seen the surface of Mars,” Eames scoffed. He stuck a crooked, damp cigarette in his mouth and started looking for his lighter.

“I haven’t. Been on the surface of three other planets, but I never got to drive on Mars.”

“Technicalities,” Eames said. His attempt at levity was fading as his search became increasingly fruitless. No lighter no lighter no lighter—

“Here.” Arthur held out a red plastic lighter with the card suits etched on the side. He recognized it instantly as the lighter Arthur had stolen from him at the dim sum restaurant last night. Eames snorted, saying nothing, trying to ignore the rush of warmth on his cheeks as he lit his cigarette.

“Where are we going?” Eames finally asked. He looked down below him, and all he saw was blackness. Not a single city light, as if they were over the water.

“Oakland. I need to dump the car.”

“And me?” Eames asked before he could stop himself.

“If I wanted you dead then I would’ve left you on that ledge.”

“And why were you looking for me on building ledges?” Eames asked. God, even talking about it was making his hands shake again.

“Because I need your help.”

Eames barked out another short, manic laugh.

“What’s so funny?” Arthur asked.

“You couldn’t have figured that out _yesterday_? When I was sitting right the fuck in front of you, fully dressed and not being chased by mystery thugs?”

Arthur was quiet for a long moment.

“There’s been a…a complication to my plan.”

“Really? And it was going so well before?”

“It was going a hell of a lot better before Proculus took an interest in stopping my project.”

Proculus. Eames recognized the name—it was the largest energy supplier on Earth. They were the reason Robert had left, forced to rapidly expand Fischer-Morrow to the off-world colonies in the hopes of beating Proculus to the punch. Thanks to Robert, Eames knew plenty about Proculus’ ruthless business practices and cutthroat strategies, and even hearing the name made his stomach knot.

“Is that who sent Nash and his boy?” Eames asked.

“Yes.”

“You sure?”

“Ariadne’s intel is always good.”

“Ariadne. Funny name. Your boss?”

“She’s more like a silent partner.”

“She the one who told you to come find me?”

“No. That was my idea.”

“Bloody good timing, then.”

“Not really.”

“Oh?”

“If I’d beat the cops, your face would still be pretty.”

Eames let out a dry chuckle, and tossed his cigarette butt out the narrow slit in the window. It took a few seconds for Arthur’s words to register.

“Wait…what? Those were _cops_?” Eames spluttered.

“Where did you think I got the squad spinner from?” Arthur asked. “They’d parked it outside, I broke into it when they went into the building.”

Eames’ mouth was dry, the panic rising once again. “Why…why the fuck are the cops after  _me_? I used to be a cop!”

“I…” Arthur’s voice trailed off. “Maybe they caught you on the security footage outside of Cobol?”

“That’s no reason to pick someone’s lock,” Eames said. “You knock, flash a warrant. All above board. Only reason you sneak into a man’s home is to kill him.” The blood was thundering through his skull, his chest tightening like a vice. He couldn’t breathe couldn’t breathe couldn’t—

“Eames! It’s all right!” Arthur’s hand found his in the darkness and squeezed, hard enough to hurt, to anchor Eames back into his aching body.

“It’s fucking well not all right, Arthur. This means those cops are on Proculus’ payroll. Which means nowhere in San Francisco is safe.”

“Which is why we’re going across the bay into Oakland.” Arthur kept his tone even, and he squeezed Eames’ hand once before letting go. “No police there.”

“Not much of anything left there.” Eames studied the smattering of yellow lights that comprised the remainder of the Oakland landscape. In daylight the devastation was more apparent, but even at night Eames could tell there was little left of Oakland. Between the fallout of World War Terminus and the earthquake of 2012, all that remained were abandoned shipping yards and badly damaged buildings. No sane person ever went there—which made it the perfect place to hide if you were up to no good.

_No good._

“God, I knew it. I fucking knew it,” Eames snapped.

“Knew what?”

“Knew that you were up to something. The moment I met you, hooked you up to the Voight-Kampff—”

Eames’ rant died as realization rocked through him—he’d left his machine behind. Not just the device, but his livelihood…his life. If it was police after him—especially crooked police—there was no going back to that apartment, no going back to work, no…no nothing. Just him in his pajama pants, his jacket, and a soggy pair of shoes. Not even a shirt.

“I’m sorry,” Arthur said. His voice was quiet, tired. “I never meant…I didn’t want…” Arthur’s words died off with a sigh.

Eames should be furious at Arthur for dragging him into this madness. For robbing him of his life, his possessions, his job.  In the past two days, Eames had been shot at more times than when he’d been an active blade runner. But…for the first time since that awful year—when Dom had been killed, when his license had been revoked, when Robert had left him—Eames felt genuinely alive again.

“I’m not.” Eames’ voice was so quiet he could barely hear it over the continued ringing in his own ears. How long was that going to go on?

“You’re not what?”

“Sorry.” A strange warmth flushed through him, different than the rush of heat he’d get when he usually thought of Arthur. This wasn’t his typical lustful curiosity; it was…something else. Something sincere. Something dangerous.

Seemed to be the night for danger, now, wasn’t it?

He fished another cigarette out of his jacket and lit it. Arthur glanced at him and gave a little snort.

“I thought you were trying to quit,” he said.

“Tomorrow.” Eames said, as he sucked in the fresh lungful of smoke. “I’ll quit tomorrow.”

“I’m going to hold you to that,” Arthur murmured, and Eames didn’t miss the hidden meaning in his words: _“Tomorrow, you won’t be alone, Eames. I’ll be with you.”_


End file.
